Adam Philippe de Custine

Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine (4 February 1740-28 August 1793) was a Lieutenant-General of the French Revolutionary Army during the French Revolutionary Wars. As a nobleman, he was later accused of treason after failing to relieve a besieged fellow French army and was executed by guillotine in August 1793 during the Reign of Terror.

Biography
Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine was born on 4 February 1740 in Metz, Kingdom of France. He served in the French Army as a Captain during the Seven Years' War in the 1750s up to 1763, and Custine served with distinction against the British under Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur (the comte de Rochambeau) during the American Revolutionary War in the French expeditionary army sent to the United States to help them seize independence from Great Britain in 1780.

Custine resigned from the army soon after the end of the war, but in 1791 he rejoined the French army following the French Revolution (despite his noble rank). Custine served as a Lieutenant-General of the French Revolutionary Army and fought against the Prussians and the Austrian Empire in the early 1790s on the home front in France. However, Custine was accused of treason on 28 August 1793 and was executed by guillotine, one of the 40,000 victims of the Reign of Terror due to his nobility and his incompetence as a field commander.